Every year on April 1, businesses submit applications on behalf of their foreign workers for temporary employment visas. If the number of applications to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exceeds the 85,000 quota within the first week, visas are granted through a lottery system. Last year, there were a total of 515,605 Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) submitted. Only if those are approved can a person be entered into the visa lottery.
So where are the majority of these applications coming from? The data experts at FindTheData looked at the number of applications submitted in each state in 2014 to see how Florida measures up against the rest of the country. Florida ranks 10th out of the 50 states in number of foreign employees, with 27,223 LCAs submitted. California leads the nation with 97,667 applications, followed by Texas’s 51,443. Montana came in last, with only 132 foreign employees requesting H-1B visas.
*Note: All data cited in this piece represents median salary information from H-1B visa Labor Condition Applications (LCAs). H-1B visa LCAs should not be confused with granted H-1Bs. After an LCA is approved, the company can enter their applicants into the H-1B visa lottery.